Multimessenger Signatures of Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies
Abstract
Recent discoveries of massive black holes (MBHs) in dwarf galaxies suggest that they may have a more common presence than once thought. Systematic searches are revealing more candidates, but this process could be accelerated by predictions from simulations. We perform a study of several high-resolution, cosmological, zoom-in simulations focusing on dwarf galaxies that host massive black holes at z = 0, with the aim of determining when the black holes are most observable. Larger dwarf galaxies are more likely to host MBHs than those of lower mass. About 50% of the MBHs in dwarfs are not centrally located, but rather are wandering within a few kpc of the galaxy center. The accretion luminosities of MBHs in dwarfs are low throughout cosmic time, rendering them extremely difficult to detect. However, the merger history of these MBHs is optimal for gravitational wave detection by LISA.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1806.00471,
title = {Multimessenger Signatures of Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies},
author = {Jillian Bellovary and Colleen Cleary and Ferah Munshi and Michael Tremmel and Charlotte Christensen and Alyson Brooks and Thomas Quinn},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.00471},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
replaced with accepted version